Plans for an #800 million airport near Gatwick could halt plans to build one between Coventry and Rugby.

Under the proposals, leaked today and likely to be included in airport consultation papers to be published next year, Redhill private aerodrome in Surrey, five miles from Gatwick, would be turned into a full-scale airport for domestic and European flights.

The site - which would involve the destruction of two dozen houses - would be connected by a rail link to Gatwick, funded by private cash and could be up and running within four years.

Campaigners fighting plans to build a #7 billion airport at Church Lawford by 2021 hope the plans could remove the need for the world's second biggest airport in the Warwickshire greenbelt.

Rugby and Kenilworth Labour MP Andy King said he would like to see the south east "solving its own" airport problems, adding: "The fact they are looking wider in the south east is in itself a positive thing for the Midlands because it lessens the threat to us.

"In Rugby we don't support massive air expansion anywhere in the UK - we believe expansion should be tackled in an evolutionary way as necessary, not necessarily as demanded by the aviation industry."

Nigel Stott, chairman of the airport action group in Church Lawford, said: "Any development in the south east means the Rugby option goes away.

"But we don't support any development anyway - our response has always been based on serious question marks over the government's forecasts."

Last month the government was forced to include Gatwick in its national aviation plans after the High Court ruled it had acted unfairly to leave it out because of a 1979 agreement.